What "Home" Means To Me
Home means more to me than just a place or location; home is more of a feeling. Home is a place you grow up sometimes wanting to leave, but when you grow old you often want to go back to. A home is where I played, laughed, cried, learned and valued small moments that I hold so dearly. For some, despite the hardships, home pushed us to be more than just what our tough circumstances made of us and turned us into resilient women living our truth.
A home is more than four walls and a roof over our head; it is an environment. It's the welcoming emotion that greets us at the entrance, similar to how Restorations greeted me when I was too afraid to take the first step into this community.
A home should be filled with people who love, support, and encourage you in the midst of chaos, people you can rely on when times get tough. A home can be made up of life's experiences, teachable moments, and the people around you. I believe that family is a relative concept that is defined by our interactions with one another rather than by blood.
A house is defined as a structure for residential purposes. Home is where the heart is, where you’re surrounded by those who bring warmth when things get cold. And as I continue on my path of healing and self growth, I've met some incredible people, a community that accepts, supports, inspires, and leaves me feeling safe. This group of people is a community that I can call home, who motivate me to be the best version of myself. A place that has made a huge significance in my life and led me to meet people along the way who I will never forget. This is Home.
Written by Adalia.
Note: Restorations recognizes the importance of financially compensating survivors for their time, energy, and expertise and, as such, we financially compensate all survivors who contribute written pieces for the blog. We strongly believe in the necessity of financial compensation for this work, and we urge other organizations who request survivors to speak, write, or consult for their organization to do likewise for the following reasons:
to demonstrate a commitment to honour and respect survivors’ time, energy, and expertise;
to demonstrate an appreciation for the emotional, mental, and physical energy necessary to share their experiences with us in order to benefit others;
and to demonstrate a commitment to developing the economic independence of survivors.